> We are making progress and as long as the pessimists don't get their way.

I've been hearing a similar statement for decades now, but the global emissions only continue to rise.

In fact, I've been hearing that logic since the late 90s and in that time we have doubled the cumulative emissions up to that point.

We have seen that emissions drop with decrease in economic activity (multiple times). Yes, batteries, renewables, and nuclear would all part a big part in a truly sustainable future... but we have to survive until that future first.

> Reducing carbon emissions isn't a solution

We're well past the "solution" stage of this problem. Where in the "harm reduction" phase. Reduced emissions is absolutely superior in this regard to increased emissions... and yet you're arguing that we should be increasing them because a magic solution is just around the corner, like it always has been.

Well I have been hearing that Electric cars would never be adopted at scale and that Tesla was going bankrupt for over a decade.

Yet here we are and the Model Y became the best selling car in the world this year.

Don't give up hope friend.

Nuclear too cheap to meter is too cheap to sustain, ironically. In our current system too much abundance is bad thing.

Perhaps I am just optimistic but AI doesn't seem necessary, nor does fusion. Fission is more than capable of providing enough power and if we are going to do this via sequestration, we may as well start now and forget net-zero.

I definitely think this is an organisation problem, not a technology problem. Societies are not organising to fix the issue, instead it seems they are hoping the global free market will eventually make it economically beneficial in the short term, to save the climate.

There is plenty of data that suggests societies respond to financial incentives.

As the cost of battery/wind/solar plunge, their use goes up. And fusion has the potential to be much cheaper than those.

A very very small percentage of CO2 emissions is due to people wanting to increase CO2 in the atmosphere. Almost all of it is because that is the cheapest or most efficient way to travel, heat your home, make products, etc...

> Ironically people like Greta have had the worst impact on climate. Not just that she flies around the world instead of doing zooms. But that she is all doom and gloom instead of trying to help us progress technology

I'm pretty sure you're wrong here, and Greta doesn't fly, but if you insist, can you share your sources?

Greta and her PR team do not publish details of her carbon footprint, so I don't have exact details her travels but Wikipedia is a fairly reliable source to give some insight.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transatlantic_Voyages_of_Greta...

Wikipedia doesn't state that Greta flies, so I assume you're admitting your error.

It specifically says she does fly in emergency cases. Did you not read it?

No I didn't. Can you quote the phrase?

The word "emergency" occurs once, in phrase "Thunberg does not fly except for emergency cases.(4)" . The link (4) leads to https://time.com/5663534/greta-thunberg-arrives-sail-atlanti... "Climate Activist Greta Thunberg, 16, Arrives in New York After Sailing Across the Atlantic" . I didn't read the whole article, are you saying that article says Thunberg flies?

I read the article, it's about travel by electric boat across the ocean.

So I'm still not sure where's the information supporting "Not just that she flies around the world instead of doing zooms." coming from.

Sorry, I'm not sure where the wikipedia Editor got that information from. I can change my original comment to "travels with a significant carbon footprint" if you would make you happy? Does the carbon footprint section of wikipedia seem up to your standards?

From what I know about Greta, she is rather careful with such matters. Your comment in general is in effect destroying part of those careful efforts, so I'd be happy if it wouldn't.

"Significant carbon footprint" asks for, significant compared to what? Maybe Greta leaves bigger footprint than the lowest, say, 10% of the Earth population, who don't really have access to modern technologies with that significant footprint. But she surely tries quite a lot given the circumstances where she is, and encourages us to follow. So I'm skeptical about accusations towards her without enough evidence.

"Careful" isn't a number though. The wikipedia referenced flights to support her boat trip alone put her carbon footprint above hundreds of millions of people.

https://www.iea.org/commentaries/the-world-s-top-1-of-emitte...

She is most likely in the 90% percentile not the 10% percentile. Which is my point. We shouldn't look to people with huge carbon footprints as role models. Al Gore for example has multiple homes. He is easily in the top 5% of carbon footprints in the world.

If the most alarmist and upset climate activists cannot get their carbon footprint down below the average human, then it is pointless to try. The only fix for this problem is technological acceleration toward clean energy, even if getting there causes short term emissions to increase.

I disagree, but I don't think this is a good platform to list arguments and supporting explanations. I've tried to write a longer post, but explanations are too long to be sufficient.

If you cannot simply explain why I am wrong in a short form context, that is fine, but please think about the possibility that I am right.

Let's not use this platform for what it's not very suitable. I'm afraid we won't relay our arguments without doubtful amount of efforts.

At least this time, she didn’t fly. You can watch her cross the Atlantic on sailing vessel La Vagabonde:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=frZI857axRs

> But that she [Greta Thunberg] is all doom and gloom instead of trying to help us progress technology

I’ve been hearing this a lot lately, that climate doomerism is somehow damaging to the cause and preventing any meaningful climate action.

I think this is a misunderstanding of what climate doomerism is. I hear people talking as if being realistic about damning nature of the damage we have done, and who is to blame for it all. And instead people believe the message is that we should just give up. If you believe the latter, I dare you to go find any source where Greta Thunberg (or any other supposed climate doomer) has said anything of that nature (hint they haven’t).

But suppose that you are right, and the message of climate doomers is actually that of giving up, now if you compare that to the decades of misdirection and outright lying that the fossil fuel industry has done to actively hinder climate action, and on top of that to actually double down on burning fossil fuels. How much damage, relative to the fossil fuel industry, have people like Greta Thunberg actually caused. Relatively speaking that damage is a drop in the ocean.

I'm not sure what could be done much better than what Greta does given her environment. I believe so far her impact on climate awareness is large net positive, and that alone - the putting the problem front and center before many people - should already help at least somewhat with mitigating it. Not to mention other, largely positive effects of her work.